


Sterling Silver and Gilded Cages

by SandrC



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, demiromantic asexual Adaine Abernant, werewolf!Adaine Abernant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:48:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29490828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: "The DC for contracting lycanthropy is twelve. I'll tell you that right off the bat. What is your Constitution Saving throw?""Two, so I have to get a ten or more.""Ten or more? And a nine or lower means—""I'm a werewolf."(Or: where Adaine fails her Con save during the Black Pit and deals with the consequences.)
Relationships: Adaine Abernant & Jawbone O'Shaughnessey, Adaine Abernant & The Bad Kids
Comments: 14
Kudos: 45





	Sterling Silver and Gilded Cages

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AHappyPup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AHappyPup/gifts).



> I've been working on this since like...FHSY was running. Oof. But at least I got it done now haha. Big thanks to Al for being my good friend and also constant source of serotonin while I hammered this out.
> 
> Hey, I said I would work on this after Kozyrev Mirrors. I did. Go me.
> 
> Anyway, this got out of hand, as it did, and then I decided, okay I will put FHSY in a second chapter. God knows when the fuck it will be finished but I will write it. I promise you this.
> 
> Anyway I just love Adaine so much and I think about her a lot but also...I am vicariously living my desire to be able to use my anxiety to turn into a large wolf and tear up people who set me off. Look out, customers, I will ruin you. :>
> 
> Anyway pls enjoy.

She doesn't know anything is wrong. Not at first.

The wound he left on her arm—sheepishly scratching his head, apologizing _furiously_ , but she gives him a job opportunity anyway and he's thankful—doesn't heal right. It's pale, silver, like moonlight against the darker gold of her high elven skin. Different from the bright gold freckles that fleck her face. Her father—he's _never_ happy with her, _is he_? She won't _ever_ be good enough, her mother silent and her sister a vitriolic venom-spitting snake—comments once about getting her some kind of clasp to cover "that _unsightly_ scar" and how "it is to be _expected_ , marring yourself once you start attending that _barbaric_ adventuring school" and never brings it up again. Still, she swallows panic and hunkers down and studies over breakfast.

She has a quiz on necromancy a week later. It's her weakest subject, even _if_ her favorite spell is necromantic in origin. It's been driving her mad. She's _so_ worried she'll fail, so she's been getting less hours of trancing in as she crams every bit of information she can about necromantic practices and the art of moving life energy into her sleep-deprived head.

Riz hands her a coffee as they pass in the hallways—him to his rogue classes, her to her quiz—and nods in understanding. They're similar enough that he doesn't need to ask and she's _endlessly_ grateful.

She shouldn't've had the coffee. Caffeine always exacerbates her anxiety.

When she wakes again, she's in the ladies bathroom in the hallway between the divine and arcane magic departments, curled on the floor with Kristen standing over her, glowing a gentle yellow and looking concerned.

A flood of horror rips through her veins as Kristen leans her head out the bathroom and says, " _She's back!_ "

" _What_ —?" She can barely get the words out of her hoarse throat before Fig rushes in looking relieved, Jawbone behind her.

The smell of guilt is _overwhelming_.

(How does she know what guilt _smells_ like?!)

" _Hey_ , kiddo," Jawbone says, hunching over, guilty and panicked and sorry, he's _sorry_ , he's **_so_ **_sorry_.

( _Why_ is that something she can tell? She's never been good at reading people. Why _now_? Why _him_?)

"She calmed down a couple moments after you left, Fig," Kristen says. Fig's ears set back in relief and she nods. There's blood under her nails and the metal of it overpowers the worry.

"What happened? Why am I—?" Adaine asks, frustration pawing at her guts as everyone continues to avoid making eye contact with her.

"What do you remember?" Jawbone asks instead, a halfway point between an answer and acknowledgement.

" _I_...coffee from Riz before my class. Black with two sugars, how I take it. I was...worried about the necromancy quiz?" Adaine sorts through the pile of memories as she sits on the cold bathroom floor. She sat up a few moments ago but her legs are jelly and she can't stand. She's had enough panic attacks to know to not force it and school is safe. Her parents aren't here.

(At _this_ thought, her wrist itches, the crescent moon of teeth burning faintly with heat beneath her fingers. She feels a flash of rage and the desire to _rip_ and _tear_ , immediately swallowed by horror and guilt.)

" _And_?" Jawbone prompts.

"And... _that's it?_ " A wave of guilt rushes from him and he grimaces, hunching under the weight of his own feelings.

(She _knows_ , in some way, that his grimace is not meant for her. That his body language and the strange smell she knows is guilt and an apology and abject horror— _what have I done?!_ — _proves_ that it isn't but she doesn't know _how_ she knows and that ramps up the anxiety already snarling and running circles in her ribcage.)

" _Kiddo_ ," he says again and there is a flash of stygian, magic and precognition or perhaps _retro_ cognition and _she_ — ** _she_** —

"I...didn't _hurt_ anyone did I?" Her voice wavers.

Kristen, for all her habit of putting her foot in her mouth, and Fig, for all her boisterous and loud personality, are at a loss. Silently, both shake their heads and Kristen holds her staff up and offers Adaine a weak smile.

"Turns out, Calm Emotions works on quelling panic attacks _pretty_ well," she says.

( _Even on werewolves_ , she _doesn't_ say.)

"We caught you darting out of your classroom while we were taking bathroom breaks," Fig adds, noting how Adaine was beginning to fold in on herself. "Or, _okay_ , _I_ was skipping to spy on Porter and _Kristen_ was on her way to talk to Goldenrod about talking back to her teacher." The forced nonchalance slips slightly, smoke slithering between her teeth revealing her tension, but Fig gestures with her hands like nothing is wrong.

Kristen bristles, " _All_ I asked about was whether a lack of faith was, in and of itself, _a system of faith_ and sustainable as a cleric belief, or if our magic _had_ to be divine. When she got angry is when I started arguing!"

Fig stifled a giggle, oscillating between playing off of Kristen's indignation and Adaine's worry. " _Still_ , point being is you were _pretty composed_. It looked like a regular panic attack so we took you to the bathroom to let you ride it out. I was being a _real_ German Shepherd, not letting anyone in, but Kristen told me to get Jawbone so I did."

"You kept yourself together until the peak of it, I think," Kristen says.

( _You lost control_ , she _doesn't_ say.)

"Calm Emotions kinda zonked you out and you laid on the floor until just before Fig got back with Jawbone. You were like...a big dog, really? Huffing kinda loud but not doing much. I was terrified you were really sick or something but...Jawbone would know better than I would." The shimmer of sweat on Kristen's face and the way she was white-knuckling her staff. The grit of her teeth and the way she kept rolling her neck and shaking her hands to release the tension.

She hadn't _hurt_ anyone but she _had_ scared her friends.

Jawbone knelt down so he was eye level with her. "They did the right thing. I - you wouldn't've _hurt_ anyone, I don't think. It's not in your nature and...for all that lycanthropy makes you a _little more animal_ , it doesn't change who you are. It just... _removes the inhibitors_. If you hadn't been calmed down, you _probably_ would've run about the school, found somewhere you felt safe, then calmed down enough to change back."

" _Speaking of_ ," Fig shrugged off her jacket and handed it to Adaine, her cheeks a deep crimson, "your clothes are a _little_ ruined. I _think_ I may have something you can wear if you wanna come by my mom's before you go home."

Adaine looked down and quickly snatched the jacket from Fig's hands. " _Thank you._ "

"Any time. It's what friends do, _right_?" Fig grins, all teeth and sincerity.

"I... _guess_?" She says, nodding.

( _Not that I would know_ , she _doesn't_ say.)

Wearing Fig's jacket and Adaine's gym shorts and her Hudol tie and Kristen's gym shoes, Adaine gets a bottle of wolfsbane pills from Jawbone— _take them once a day to alleviate the severity of a full moon, you can call me any time kiddo, I'm **so** sorry, really_—and goes on her day.

She gets a day's reprieve on her necromancy quiz _for medical reasons_. She _barely_ passes anyway.

(She cries in the bathroom for an hour after the results are handed back. Kristen and Fig at the ready with stolen food and tissues and songs and stories. It's lonely but she's not _alone_. A new sensation. The _new_ part of Adaine—the part she wants to shove down beneath the surface, even if she knows that it won't make it any easier—bonds with them in a way she doesn't have words for yet and she feels more at home with them than she does at home.)

* * *

Being a werewolf is one more secret from her parents. The scar is less and less a reminder of her failure—failure to keep out of the thick of it, failure to avoid a werewolf's bite attack, failure to cast Shield in time—and more and more a tether binding her to someone she finds _infinitely_ more helpful than _her own goddamn parents._

Jawbone is a gift. The wolfsbane pills taste bad but when her anxiety flares up, it's easier to push down her wolf and just ride out the emotions as the elf Adaine Abernant than a very large, gold-furred animal. And, better yet, he is _patient_.

Angwyn Abernant never cares what Adaine thinks. _He_ is right, _she_ is wrong, _end of story_. _Conversely_ , Jawbone _listens_ to Adaine whenever she speaks. He hears her and takes what she says to heart, offering _advice_ instead of _admonishment_.

( _Pack_ , the wolf in her says. _Pack_ , the wolf in him responds. When the full moon rises and her body contorts and _snaps_ and she is aware of the pain and sensation of becoming more beast than elf, he takes her to the woods on the border of Elmville with his niece and they run until their energy flags and the three of them cuddle in a pile. When she's like this, he teaches her to _listen_ to herself, to the wolf. Teaches her that the wolf isn't something scary to be feared, but an _extension_ of herself. Teaches her what Pack means and teaches her to howl her feelings out. When they wake that morning, covered in dirt and leaves, slipping on clothes over their underwear, she doesn't feel _shame_. She feels safe. It's foreign but not _unwelcome_ and she walks to school with a skip in her step the next day.)

Being a werewolf changes _very little_ about her home life. Her father still is dismissive, her mother distant, her sister a right bitch, but now she's less likely to keep her opinions to herself. By the seventeenth time she's gotten into a snarling screaming match with Aelwyn that devolves into spellcasting and name-calling, she looks her father in the face and states that she's spending the night at her friend's house for the next few weeks, "until the lot of you can determine if I'm worth being kind to", packs up a bag, and knocks on Gilear's door in Strongtower.

Fig welcomes her with open arms and a raucous peal of laughter as she describes—with a small amount of _pride_ —the look of _gobsmacked horror_ on her father's face as she simply cast Silence around herself on the way out so she couldn't hear them try to "reason with her". And, for all that this action keeps her up at night, wracked with anxiety and regret, the fact that there are _three_ apartments in Strongtower that would _easily_ let her in is enough to quell the fear of abandonment.

"So it's like family?" Fig asks, tongue sticking out between her teeth as she applies little toothpick dots of gold to Adaine's nails; constellations in the deep blue sky she's already painted.

" _Mmm_ ," Adaine hums in response, "more like...so you can _love_ someone and not be _in love_ with them, right?" More a question than a statement but Fig nods. "Pack is like...family _plus_? Not _completely_ family by blood but not family by _choice_? It matters what you do because that makes you Pack. You could be my friend and not be Pack or you could be my family and not be Pack but you're my friend _and_ you're Pack, if that helps? Does that help?"

Fig hums, letting the constellations dry as she grabs a bottle of pearlescent silver nail polish to finish up. " _A bit?_ It's _instinctual_ , right? Like you didn't pick me to be Pack on purpose coz I'm your friend or coz it's convenient?" Bitter resentment rippled off her and Adaine grimaced.

" _Hardly_. I mean, I love _all_ of the Bad Kids as friends and all but right now it's just you and Kristen who are Pack. You, Kristen, Jawbone, and Tracker. I don't think...it's not like I can _decide_?" She shrugs, careful to leave her hands as still as possible, marveling at the delicate design. No one has _ever_ done her nails in one color, let alone as intricately as Fig has already started. "It's more like...magnets snapping together? An alignment of the stars? It's very new to me. You'd be better off asking Jawbone really. But I _can_ assure you this: I will _never **ever**_ hurt you. Not on purpose." She locks eyes with Fig, tries her best to communicate the truth of this statement.

Fig searches her gaze, ruby eyes meeting brilliant blue, and seems satisfied with what she finds, deftly shaking the silver nail polish and starting a crescent moon on Adaine's right thumb. "Well thanks for that. For what it's worth, I like you guys a lot better than any other friends I might have had." Adaine can hear the air quotes around "friends", offering Fig a soft smile.

"I'm glad."

After Daybreak stops breathing, one of Riz's arcubus bolts right between his eyes, Adaine realizes how little violence bothers her anymore. Not in the anxiety way—her hands still shake at the memory of Doreen and a ladle dripping with chunky blood and ivory teeth, she doesn't like being _close_ to death—but in the moral way. Seeing Daybreak breathe his last after abusing Zayn and Kristen and Ragh felt _good_. **_Cathartic_**. She snarled at him at least once, Ray of Sickness notwithstanding, and his shitty comments about "heretics and sinners" and "the purity that Helio will bring to this damaged world" while he made eye contact with her and her entire party set her hair on edge.

She only wishes a little bit that she could have been the one to make him a little _less_ human.

(The guilt that follows that thought sends her spiraling until Jawbone reminds her that her first thoughts, the ones that show up in her brain _before_ her filter kicks in, _aren't_ indicative of her as a person. The fact that he couldn't be infected with lycanthropy due to his status as a paladin is only overshadowed by the reality that, in spite of her wanting to, she _didn't_ attack him with intent to infect him. That helps a lot.)

Kristen joins her and Fig and Riz in Strongtower not long after and it doesn't take long for Adaine to tell her about Pack. The drunken sobbing is enough to make her skin flush hot but it helps Kristen settle into a life without her parents.

 _Plus_ , when Tracker comes by, Adaine waggles her eyebrows at Fig, who waggles them back while Kristen stumbles with all of her -4 Dexterity modifier, feet in her mouth, around the girl that made her think more critically about her faith and sexuality. Content with this, with the Pack she has, she snuggles against Kristen and Fig and sleeps instead of trancing, safe in the deepest part of her.

* * *

Ostentatia is having a party and Fig and Gorgug—who've been practicing every day they can at the Thistlespring tree between Fig "auditing" barbarian classes and the Bad Kids just chilling about in _one_ of the _many_ Strongtower apartments they have access to—are the live music. Riz is there because he's got a bee in his bonnet about the palimpsest case. Kristen is there to try and get her party on since she can't disappoint her parents any more than she _already has_. Fabian is there because he's the life of the party, he's _Fabian **Aramaris **Seacaster_! And Adaine is there because she wants to support her Pack and because, like Riz, _something_ about the palimpsest case feels wrong.

Maybe it's her nerves but maybe it's something closer to her precognitive abilities. Either way, she took her wolfsbane, the nearest full moon is a week out, and she's got her magical focus out of habit more than anything. What could go wrong?

Aelwyn. _Aelwyn_ could go wrong.

The version of her sister that Adaine watches at this party is _everything_ she tried to tell her parents _and more_. Never once would she have expected her sister to be selling drugs at parties or drinking with wild abandon or using her well honed magics to summon pretty girls for nerds to make out with. Never once would she have figured her sister would be so cruel as to imprison someone. Never once would she have thought that her sister was behind some of the missing girls.

But she sees Aelwyn with a palimpsest in her hand in Ostentatia's bedroom, the hostess herself missing, and everything snaps in a way that she can't even begin to explain.

And she doesn't fight the tide of fury that ripples through her.

When her sister Blinks to the roof, out of reach of any of them save the more athletic, Adaine is already out of spell slots. She can feel the animal in her _beg_ for freedom. She knows, in the way that she can feel the moon pull her blood in the same way as the tides, that she can make it while Riz and Gorgug still are scrambling up to get the watch out of her hands so they can get aid from the Hudol nerds. So she snarls in pain and _lunges_ , more wolf than elf.

She takes care not to bite her. Even as much as she dislikes her sister, even as much as she wants her to _suffer_ for the years of pain she's caused her—let alone the girl she just imprisoned in a _fucking palimpsest_ —she doesn't want her sister to catch lycanthropy. She wants to embody the type of lycan Jawbone and Tracker are; kind and understanding, _careful_ with their curse, but warm. So her claws rip and pull at Aelwyn's hair and at her face and the watch skitters across the roof where Riz snags it in his free hand and unfreezes time.

Chaos _erupts_ as the Hudol nerds dispel the remaining elemental construct cheerleader and they bear witness to a half-wolf Adaine bearing down on her sister.

For a moment, though she never would lay teeth on her, Adaine loses herself to the tide. Drowns in the silver and iron that binds her and drags her deep beneath the surface of the pure rage that is "you were _my sister_ and you _never_ made me feel safe! Home was never _a home_! Home was a _prison_ and you deserve _far worse than this!_ "

She's stopped by Riz interposing himself between her blood-covered claws and her fallen sister, yellow eyes high beams that freeze her in her tracks.

" _Enough_." His voice is a command and she halts, not yet in her senses, but caught and cowed. "That's _enough_. You're going to _kill_ her, Adaine. Let Kristen get up here to stabilize her. My mom is on the way. Just... _stop_ , okay?"

Behind her, Gorgug helps Kristen up while Fabian and the Hangman call up with encouragement and Fig gives her a quick Bardic Inspiration to negate her clumsiness. In front of her, Riz tells her to stop. Behind him, her sister lays unconscious, blood marring a lot of her face, hair a mess, curled in on herself like she was trying to protect herself _from_...Adaine.

"I need you to _calm down_ , okay? Look at me and breathe, in _hold_ out _hold_ , can you do that?" His words are even, _calm_ , and she can feel the intent. He wants _her_ to be _safe_ and, for all that Riz's mom is a cop, the EPD wouldn't take well to a werewolf mauling a teenager, even if it was warranted.

( _What have I done?_ The more cognizant part of her wails, the panic behind the draining fury that leaves her chest hollow. _What have I **done**?!_)

She breathes—her Pack _asked_ her to—and wills her body _back_. Half shifting hurts like _all_ shifting does but it doesn't _wholly_ destroy her clothes— _especially_ not her jacket, which is magical. _Still_ , Gorgug hands her the tee shirt off his back as soon as he's on the roof, slipping his hoodie back on as soon as she cinches it at the waist with a belt she pulls from her jacket, and she feels _foolish_.

Her Pack wraps around her as Kristen Spares the Dying and Aelwyn is no longer in danger of bleeding out. By the time the red and blue of the EPD light up the yard, Adaine is emotionally drained and also has taken time to rinse her sister off so she doesn't look so similar to _Doreen_.

(Kristen and Gorgug and Riz— _Pack, warm, home, happy_ —encircle her until Riz needs to wave down his mom, who cries out in exasperation. She takes time to think about how _good_ it felt to hurt Aelwyn like she hurt her for so many years. She takes time to think about how _unsafe_ she felt at home, for _how many years_ , how she could have kept living there and just been _miserable_. She is equal parts relieved and _horrified_ that she got out. She takes a deep breath and faces Sklonda Gukgak.)

Aelwyn makes her feel unsafe. _Truth_ , though past tense, and that's _all_ it takes to get an ambassador's daughter with diplomatic immunity thrown in jail. Her father _glares_ at her, lip curled in a sneer, and she mimics him, showing a little more _teeth_. Her mother, dead-eyed and observant, hums thoughtfully but doesn't object. Arianwen Abernant is quiet outside of the classroom, Angwyn Abernant is loud in everything he does. A perfect pair.

When Arianwen points out that the marks on her daughter's face and arms look like that of a wild animal _or_ , perhaps, _a lycan_ , Adaine stiffens. Still, she didn't spend her life in a household that taught her "appearances above all else" for nothing, and she shapes her face in confusion and worry.

"The only people here were the Hudol boys, Ostentatia Wallace, the conjured elementals belonging to Aelwyn, my friends, and myself! If there was _any_ sort of animal here, it _must_ have been conjured. Perhaps she encountered it in the Ethereal Plane, when she was Blinking about?" Her voice is hoarse from howling and screaming and crying but her tone is pitch perfect innocence.

" _Maybe_ it's the goblin. You can take the little beasts out of the Mountains of Chaos but you _can't_ take the Mountains of Chaos out of the little beast after all," Angwyn makes the mistake of saying. Arianwen stiffens but it's a shade too late as Sklonda has Angwyn by his collar, a hearty fistful of fine elven fabric being torn by goblin claws.

"You'll do well to keep my son's name out of your mouth, _ambassador_. Perhaps the Solesian government should _reconsider_ your position, if you're _so unwilling_ to consider the feelings of any race aside from your own. Solace is a cultural mixing pot and _my_ parents and _my husband's_ parents didn't _claw_ their way through a system _designed_ to _destroy_ them for some uppity elven man to look at our son, who has _more_ than earned his place in this country, and decide he's some kind of monster, _are we understood?_ " Her tone is level and careful, never slipping from the business professionalism she always uses, but Adaine can _smell_ the fury tearing from her.

(Given the opportunity, Sklonda would prove Angwyn right and tear his throat out with her teeth but she _won't_ because she knows it'll _cause_ more problems than _solve_ them. Her fury is the same as yours, _how **dare** anyone threaten her family? **Her son?** How **dare** they?_ But unlike _you_ , _she_ can reign in the impulses.)

She swallows shame and smiles, vacantly, as her father backs up, sputtering in indignation.

"As I said _before_ ," she adds as one last barb as they retreat with their tails between their legs, "until you can determine if I'm worth being _kind_ to, I'll be staying _elsewhere_. If you wish to contact me, I can give you my crystal number, but _otherwise_ , I ask that you refrain from being present in my life." Adaine holds in the nausea as best she can and cheekily waves as her parents leave in a huff.

(The way that Sklonda checks up on her immediately after is more parental than her parents have _ever_ been. She cries again, wrecking sobs that leave her boneless, and Gorgug makes sure she's secure on Fabian's back as he drives the Hangman back to Strongtower so she can sleep it off.)

When Aelwyn is busted out of prison and her family disappears, Adaine can only feel a dull numbness. _Of course_ they would care about their _precious **perfect** firstborn_. She can't even find it in herself to care that this has started a war between Solace and Fallinel. It's just another thing, isn't it?

* * *

Watching Riz shoot Biz's fingers off one at a time is more satisfying than it should be. The snivelling little shit had always been a bad guy—she needs to trust her instincts more—and knowing that they're not gonna kill him is enough to keep her own anger at bay. But _still_...trapping girls to make them into easy targets for nice guy nerd assholes? And to have targeted _her_ as well? She should've shown Biz Glitterdew how much of a _complacent maiden_ she could be.

That could wait. _That could wait_. They had to find where the palimpsest were being uploaded.

But they get arrested. Someone high up is pulling strings and no one likes it.

(The full moon in jail is hard. If it weren't for Kristen being able to cast Calm Emotions by channeling the magic through scorched hands instead of a holy symbol, she would have run herself ragged. The damn Solesian police won't let her have her wolfsbane supplements despite her _screaming_ that she needed them for medical reasons; despite her tearing through her clothes in a panic attack fueled shift. It's by the grace that she's surrounded by Pack that keeps her from ripping into the next person to offer her food. By the time Bill Seacaster shows up and Fabian beats him senseless, _everyone_ in that room is Pack, and she presses herself against Fabian while he works his feelings out.)

Goldenhoard threatens their homes and, for all that she knows her own home is empty, she spends her time and energy saving Kristen's. Her parents might be shit, but her brothers don't deserve that, and it's _more_ than a _little_ satisfying to see hardcore Harvestmen quiver in fear as a large golden-furred wolf with blue eyes breaks down their door and herds their children to safety then changes back into a golden-haired elf with blue eyes. _Especially_ when they recognize the elf as a friend of their heretic daughter. Moreso when she idly comments that they're going to go kill a dragon and that, for all their misdeeds, they're welcome.

( _If you touch my Pack, I will **make sure** you **regret** it,_ she _doesn't_ say, although she's _certain_ the Applebees can feel the intent behind her words.)

Prom probably was _very_ weird for anyone who wasn't in the know, Adaine realized after it's all said and done. A bunch of freshman wind up in prison for a month or so and then break out, bust into prom, throw a _literal_ bomb at the prom king and queen, _goad_ Penelope Everpetal into revealing _she_ was the reason that Sam Nightingale and the other girls disappeared, _and then_ their interim principal blows up a bank and turns into Kalvaxus, the King of the Red Wastes. Still, she wouldn't trade that experience for _anything_ (except maybe a normal year of high school.)

Fabian wears his father's eyepatch well, head held high, the blade of the Seacaster in his sweaty and bloodied grip. Kristen has a new god behind her, one she made with her own force of will, and she has _once again_ pulled them from the depths of despair by sneaking Arthur _out_ of Helioic heaven. Riz and his mom tear into Kalvaxus with their teeth, no care for the concept of stereotype in the face of _visceral revenge_. Fig and her father jam out, idly talking about family and the Nine Hells and "maybe I can visit during spring break," smiling wider than she has _all year_. Gorgug is talking with a large orc man from the band—his biological father, it seems—about looking for him and how, for all that it's nice to meet them at last, Wilma and Digby are his parents but _maybe_ they could come over for dinner? And Adaine, Oracle ~~of the Elves~~ for Everyone curls against Jawbone, watching her Pack be happy, satisfied with the ending.

( _Come stay with me_ , Jawbone asks without speaking. _You don't have to say **yes** , but—_)

( _Yes._ There is no hesitation, just boundless love. She nuzzles Jawbone, whose tail beats a divot in the ground. _I would **love** to come stay with you._)

And all is well, for a little while.


End file.
